Gantry Framework

Definition of Gantry

gan·try (gan′trē) noun

(RocketTheme) A framework used for assembling, building and maintaining a RocketTheme template

Overview of Gantry

Gantry is a sophisticated Joomla template framework with the sole intention of being the best platform to build a solid template with. Gantry takes all the lessons learned during the development of many RocketTheme templates and distills that knowledge into a single super-flexible framework that is easy to configure, simple to extend, and powerful enough to handle anything we want to throw at it.

Documentation: Learn more about the Gantry Framework

We have provided a series of Blog Posts on the main RocketTheme site, describing in much greater detail than the basic overview on this page, the details of the Gantry Framework, providing a more in depth insight.

We strongly recommend reading these entries to gain a reasoned understanding of Gantry

Key Features

The Gantry framework is packed with many great features that enable the rapid development of feature-rich designs with a minimum amount of effort. We've also gone to great lengths to enhance the standard Joomla administration user interface to make configuring a Gantry-powered template easier than ever before. Check out a sampling of the features Gantry brings to the table:

Gantry is XML driven, adding another row of completely flexible module positions is as simple as editing one XML file.

New flexible parameter system allows loading preset theme attributes and modifying for a custom design. Also support session and cookie level overriding for development.

All new table-less HTML overrides based on the excellent GNU/GPLv2 overrides from YOOtheme

New standard typography and Joomla core elements styling

New advanced caching system makes using Gantry really fast!

All configuration state is stored in params.ini and cached for speed.

Optimized codebase with speed, size, and reuse core tenants of the framework design

Overview of the Administrator Interface

The administrative interface for Gantry is one of, if not the, most extensive and intuitive Joomla administrators in the community as a whole today. Gantry takes the template parameter ability of Joomla and takes it to the next level with a robust, diverse, functional and overall, substantial array of options to control, essentially, all aspects of the template.

The best way to discover all the options available, as well as what they do, is to visit the administrator itself at Extensions → Template Manager → rt_reaction_j15

Below is an overview of the main areas: Presets, Settings, Features, Menu, Layouts and Advanced.

Advanced

Layouts

Menu

Presets

Settings

Features

This selection is compiled of more advanced options such as gantry caching, allowing for even more control.

This parameter group is the most revolutionary as it offers a diagrammatic interface on how to configure the various positions. This is best illustrated at the Template Parameters section of the Gantry Layout Overview.

As would be expected, this section controls the settings that are specific to the menu such as which type, opacity and other javascript variables.

This area is a basic, sliding showcase panel with previews of all the inbuilt preset styles that accompany the template. Simply click on one of them to load them as the default style on your site, and also to activate the settings for that particular style.

These vary based on which Preset Style you selected in the previous section. You can control the stylistic features of the theme in this area, such as link colour, font size or background level.

This section controls the template specific features such as the font-sizer or IE6 warning. You can disable the various features or configure them to your own personal preferences, such as the date format for example.